Archive by year

Our experience looking at sailboats is pretty thin given that we live in North Dakota, hence the goal to just look at a bunch right away.  But here is all of the looking we have done so far:

We were in Duluth just after Christmas 2017 and stopped by a couple marinas just to look around.  It was VERY cold so we would step out of the car to walk between the rows of boats on stands and then quickly return to warm up.  It was interesting to see some of the parts that had just been previously read about--keels, through hulls, rudders, weather vanes, and many more.

When we were at sailing school in Florida we were on their Dufour Gib'Sea 43 for 6 nights.  So we became pretty familiar with that model.  I was a little disappointed that we didn't do much looking under all the floor panels and just in general checking out the different systems.  On the last day two of the school's other boats were at the same dock so we went to take a quick look at those.  First a Gib'Sea 51 which was much larger inside than our 43-footer, and then the Island Spirit 37 catamaran.  The salon and cockpit on the catamaran were enormous.

For Easter this year we were up in Minot and one of Aaron's relatives said that they knew someone who was selling a sailboat on Lake Sakakawea.  They showed us a picture and we decided we would stop by the marina on the way back home to Medora.  There was still quite a bit of snow to trudge through but we found the sailboat there.  It looked pretty classy and I figured that the full keel meant it would be a solid boat but couldn't see much from the ground.  A few days later we got ahold of the owner and found out it was a Tashiba 36 that he brought up to ND after it had been damaged in a hurricane near New Orleans.  He described it as "the best boat between Lake Superior and the west coast."  Some reading online indicated that maybe he wasn't completely in fantasy land as it was designed by a legendary boat designer and built by a very well-regarded yard in Taiwan.  He said we should come check it out once it was in the water, and we did early in the summer.  His son was there too and we poked around into all the dark corners--very fascinating for Aaron.  We also took it out for a short sale that day.  Ultimately it was too expensive and not a great design for us.

In August Aaron was in Duluth with his father and brother on a motorcycle adventure.  They stopped by one of the marinas and talked to the salesperson who jumped at the chance to take them out on the docks to see 8 or so boats.  This was helpful for Aaron to see many different floor plans and conditions of boats, but also very helpful for his father to see what this crazy boat idea was all about.  The salesperson had lived on a sailboat in Key West for two years and talked about his experiences there too.  It was too bad that Anna couldn't be there but hopefully we can replicate that great experience at a few of the marinas that we visit.

Aaron here.  I trace my interest in sailing to almost 3 years ago when I found the SV Seeker YouTube channel.  This is a guy named Doug that is building a 74-foot steel sailboat in his front yard in Tulsa, OK.  I think at the time I was more interested in the spirit and scale of what he was doing than the fact that it was a sailboat.  He lets people come help him and teaches them any skills they may need for the work--often welding and grinding.

I mentioned this to my dad that summer (2016) and in October we went down there on our motorcycles to help him for a weekend.  When we arrived Friday night we spent a couple hours grinding the edges of the portholes.  On Saturday we started manufacturing the floorplates that do double duty as the tops of the diesel tanks in the bottom of the boat.  I ran a CNC machine with a plasma cutter to cut out the shapes of the floorplates and hatch covers, and my dad drilled and tapped hundreds of bolt holes for joining the two together.  On Sunday we worked on welding a cast iron threaded fitting into each hatch cover.  The SV Seeker video that includes our time in Tulsa can be found here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td707cC8UW8); my dad and I are introduced at the 5-minute mark.

Then other sailing videos kept being suggested to me on YouTube.  I watched a few and soon those were all I was watching, trying to learn as much as possible.  Sailing books started arriving in the mail.  Probably during the spring of 2017 I began to think that going cruising was something I was actually interested in doing (Anna wasn't opposed, but maybe didn't think it would actually progress this far!).  I figured that I should probably get some sailing experience so drove to Bismarck to buy an 18' 1976 Chrysler Buccaneer for $800.

We took out the Buccaneer on Lake Patterson near Dickinson, ND and had a pretty stressful first sail.  At one point the side of the boat dipped under the water…very exciting.  Hear me yelling "bail faster!" to Anna in this video we made of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9CH3XI5skc  The Buccaneer went out three other times that summer, once me by my self, once Anna, Daniel, and myself, and one time I took my sister out.  Small "dingy" sailboats are very unstable since they don't have weighted keels, and there is a definite risk of tipping it over and then struggling to right it again.  So I can't say that I really enjoyed sailing that little boat.  I didn't take it out this past summer and sold it to a guy who lives on Lake Patterson in July.

In February 2018 we went to Florida for sailing school.  We went through Blue Water Sailing School in Fort Lauderdale for a week-long course that gives you the American Sailing Association 101, 103, and 104 certifications on completion.  Those respectively are Basic Keelboat Sailing, Basic Coastal Cruising, and Bareboat Cruising.  In theory with these certifications a rental company would let you take out one of their sailboats on a charter for a week or so without a captain (making it a "bareboat").  Also a boat insurance company typically requires experience or certifications like these.

The school sent us three textbooks to study ahead of time.  Then when we arrived we spent most of our time learning the hands-on skills and then taking written and practical tests.  We spent 6 nights on board the 43' Dufour Gib'Sea named Third Wish.  We both learned a lot that week and passed all of the tests!

Our most recent sailing was in the early summer when we went to check out a Tashiba 36 on Lake Sakakawea.  We spent an hour or so examining the internals of the vessel and then went out for a short cruise along the lake shore.  Ultimately it was more expensive than what we want to spend and not a great interior layout, but it was a beautiful day to go out for a sail.

We looked at our first sailboat today and thought we should tell you about what we’ve been looking for in a boat. In general, we think that a 35 foot monohull made in the 90s would be a good fit for us.

A broad category of sailboats is whether they are a "bluewater boat" or not. Bluewater boats typically feature heavier construction, a large keel (no fin keels), and thicker rigging. Basically they are designed to be safer and more comfortable in heavy weather conditions that you may not be able to avoid when crossing an ocean, but often sacrifice performance and cost. We currently have no plans to do any longer passages and will not specifically be looking for a boat designed like this, but would be OK with one.

Specific things we will be considering:

• Diesel engine: this is pretty standard, typically about 40 horsepower
• Aft cabin: when the main cabin is in the back of the boat you get a more square-shaped bed instead of the more common triangular ones in the pointy bow (v-berth).  Also a little better walking room. However, they lack the excellent airflow of a v-berth and take away large amounts of cockpit storage.
• Sugar scoops and walkthrough transom: sugar scoops are when the back of the boat has a flat "scoop" surface down by the water line, and the walk through transom is when you can step into the cockpit from the transom. This would be great for boarding the dingy, swimming, and getting Louise on and off.
• Dual helms: having two steering wheels makes the cockpit feel more open since you can walk down the middle to the back of the boat, but was not very common on models under 50 feet until the 2000s.
• Pilothouse models: these have an enclosed cockpit and seem nice but are pretty rare.
• Navigation electronics: we have a relative at Garmin who has offered to hook us up with discounted instruments so a boat with aging electronics wouldn't be a downside.

We plan to keep the price under $50,000. This should be enough to get us in a boat that doesn't have any major issues, but will need some moderate repairs and updates. It seems usual to spend about 20% of the purchase price to do that, which for us might be things like adding solar panels, replacing batteries, painting the bottom, replacing ropes, etc.

We will need a dingy too, probably a 10 or 12 foot inflatable with a 10 horsepower motor.

So far we have left Medora at noon on Friday, October 12th, spent a night at Aaron's brother's house in Fargo, ND, and are halfway through a two night stay at Anna's parents' house in Rosemount, MN.  We had great goodbye parties at both of those places with many friends and relatives in attendance.

Our next stop is Indianapolis, IN to visit Mickey who we worked with in Medora.  We plan to spend two nights there and then cross off a few more states for Anna with a route through Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia on our way to North Carolina.

A couple weeks prior to Hurricane Florence we had chosen New Bern, NC as the first place we would start shopping for sailboats.  Some brief research made it seem like we would still find sailboats in good condition for sale there so we will check it out.  From there we will work our way south, stopping in areas that have marinas with boats for sale.  For example, in New Bern we found 5 marinas that each have about 5 listings of interest to us.

Our loose goal is to see 50+ sailboats over a few weeks as we don't have much in-person experience.  This will basically be an education phase.  As we start to narrow down our interests in specific features or models we will also be looking on Yachtworld, Craigslist, etc. and schedule some individual showings.

If things go well we envision that we could close on a sailboat by early December.  This could be anywhere from North Carolina down to Miami.  Then we would spend about one month cleaning, updating, repairing, and adding stuff.  Probably towards the end of that timeframe we would have the boat in the water and go on shakedown cruises on some days.

That would bring us to January.  We think we will spend some time in the Florida area building up our experience in relatively protected waters.  It would be fun to visit Biscayne Bay where we did most of our sailing school training.  Towards the end of February we may feel confident enough to make the 80 mile passage over to the Bahamas.  This would be our first (and only planned, other than the return passage) time being out of site of land.

In April we would return to Florida and begin the process of heading north up the east coast of the US.  Aaron's brother is getting married near Boston in early July so we will try to be there by then.  We haven't thought much about what happens after that.  Possibly we would head further north for a while and then retreat back down towards Florida as the fall weather sets in.

Needless to say, this is all subject to change!